SAP’s made big claims about HANA and its capabilities today and into the future. This Quark goes into the details and Constellation’s point of view.

A. Executive Summary

Both HANA as an architecture and database alternative indicate SAP’s future direction and next-generation approach. Consequently, numerous clients and SAP customers have inquired on whether or not they can replace their underlying Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) in their SAP Business Suite with HANA. Constellation believes SAP HANA is a critical technology that SAP customers should evaluate and understand as the roadmap reveals itself. This report primarily describes the role HANA will play for use with SAP Business Suite and in future SAP applications.

B. Research Findings

Since 2008, SAP has hinted at a real-time data platform approach to its middleware and application infrastructure based on the power of in-memory database (IMDB) technologies. IMDBs are a database management system that stores data directly onto the main memory of a computer. In an IMDB, the memory resident data has one minimum backup copy on disk, but the primary copy lives permanently in memory. Traditional on-disk databases cache data into main memory for access but the primary copy permanently lives in storage.

Thus, IMDBs have faster access times than disk-optimized systems that rely on cumbersome and slower input/output (I/O) calls. The result – the ability to provide real-time information in nanoseconds instead of milliseconds to the user or a downstream consumption feed. IMDBs play a key role as big data requires faster processing times and real-time streaming. More importantly, social, mobile, and machine-to-machine requirements require real-time and contextual right-time delivery of information.

The research shows four main themes:

In-Memory Computing Is at the Heart of SAP’s HANA Roadmap and Architectural Vision

HANA Puts SAP in Conflict with Key DB Partners but Is the Right Strategy for Next Gen Apps and Independence

Currently HANA Is Not Available for Immediate RDBMS Replacement for SAP Business Suite

However, HANA Is Already Playing a Growing Role in Non- SAP Business Suite Scenarios

Recommendations: Explore HANA for Analytics, BW Replacement but Not Yet for Database Replacement

The HANA vision represents SAP’s future platform. Constellation makes three recommendations in the report as SAP unfolds its mid-term and long-term strategy.

I agree w/ you. I think it’s been interesting to watch SAP market IMDB as if they invented it. TM1 and Times Ten have been around for more than a decade and serve as ancillary to core analytics. What do you think?

In-memory capabilities have been around since the mid-90s (think Kabira/Tibco, for example) but only recently have come into the mainstream, driven by the demands of Google, Facebook, and other SM players – not to mention the intelligence community. In theory, applying this technology to business analytics could provide powerful insights into consumer behavior, supply chain optimisation opportunities, etc.

In reality, few companies will have sufficiently reliable data to ensure that the results of such near-real-time analysis are trustworthy. Most companies core business processes have gaps and omissions, most operational groups have their own work-arounds for reports that don’t match up with the data coming down from the top, and so forth. Throw this into a realtime in-memory analytics engine and the results are very predictable.

So before we get too carried away with the potential of huge in-memory datastores, let’s remember that our operational practices have to be sufficiently good as to provide reliable data and act on any insights that might be generated. And I say this as a lifelong technology enthusiast, entrepreneur, and early creator of huge in-memory systems.

Sap HANA (High Performance Analytic Appliance) make use of the advantages of In-Memory computing that allows the processing of a number of quantities of real time data in the main memory of the server to give fast results.

Related Posts

A New CEO Brings A New Outlook To Sage Over 7000 people waded through the humidity of New Orleans in July to hear what the new CEO Stephen Kelly had in mind for Sage. Over the past three years, Sage has faced changes in product road maps, leadership changes, and partner programs. As the company […]

Curtailment Of @LinkedIn Downloadable Contacts Breaks Sacred Rules Of Digital Business On July 23, 2015 11:46 AM, Emil Protalinski at Venture Beat broke the story that many users of LinkedIn had noted on social media outlets. The easy to use, immediate download of one’s contacts in a number of flexible formats had been removed and […]

Nominate A Pioneer Or Leader Driving Business Change Every year the Constellation SuperNova Awards recognize eight individuals for their leadership in digital business. Nominate yourself or someone you know by August 7, 2015. The SuperNova Awards honor leaders that demonstrate excellence in the application and adoption of new and emerging technologies. In its fifth year, […]

Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old […]

Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old […]

Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old […]

Marketing Begins With Continuity of Experience If you’re a regular reader of my blog, and have managed to take a look at my book, I think we can say that we’ve established that digital disruption impacts every person and every business on the planet. Nowhere is the impact being felt more than in the marketing […]

Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old […]

Get All 10 Lessons Learned From Disrupting Digital Business As with the beginning of every revolution, those in the midst of it can feel it, sense it, and realize that something big is happening. Yet it’s hard to quantify the shift. The data isn’t clear. It’s hard to measure. Pace of change is accelerating. Old […]

IMSHealthWear 1.00 Gives IMS Health First Mover Advantage In Wearable Form Factors And Apps For Healthcare Customer Experience The rise and success of wearables such as the Apple Watch may not come as a surprise. Constellation estimates that Apple sold 7.25 million units to date with the potential to deliver up to 43.50 million units […]

Subscribed15 Brings Together The Market Leaders and Fast Followers Of Digital Transformation Over 2,000 attendees convened May 20th – 21st, 2015 at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco for the 5th annual Subscribed Conference. The early adopters in the subscription economy and those seeking to build for a post-sale, on-demand, attention economy were treated […]

Meet R "Ray" Wang

R “Ray” Wang is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Constellation Research, Inc. He’s a best selling author of “Disrupting Digital Business” published by Harvard Business Review Press. His popular business strategy and technology blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View” has a viewership in the 10′s of millions of page views a year. Ray’s blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models impact the enterprise.